A Golden Heirloom

a father who drinks, as told by a daughter

Gold was the colour 

of the beer my father 

chugged, 

his body devoted to each slug. 

Call reverence to the 

glass bottles that 

decorate 

our home.

Watch as 

the ginger sloshes down his throat 

like a perpetual train of

bitter 

honey. 

Gold was the colour 

of the melody that 

fled quick from your dry,

lager-stained lips.

Once a fatherlike comfort 

so tainted 

by the 

yellow odour 

lodged 

in your throat. 

I do not bring my

friends home 

in case He comes again. 

If He crawls out from the shadows, 

monstrously staggering, 

you will draw back, 

cowering.

The Demolisher: 

seeds he sows sprout 

pine trees of 

insatiable 

debts. 

He drowned himself 

in shiny yellow rivers 

like it would give us a better life.

Gold was the colour 

of the tears that 

didn’t fall 

when they found you passed out on 

you and your wife’s bed. 

Slain in a 

puddle of gold, 

surrounded by 

your version of a God. 

Naturally, the 

assassin  

presents itself 

embedded into your palm. 

From there followed 

a freedom

bound merely by 

hatred and 

unjustified sorrow.   

From the crime of  

inadvertent immaturity

I plead for liberation. 

Silenced screams 

rattle in my 

jacked-up skull. 

It is 

water under the bridge, 

but 

my mind stays 

flooded,

incessantly gushing in 

torrents of

shame, guilt, and 

relentless, 

warrantless,

self-abhorrence. 

Distant yet 

persistent, the 

lingering figment

of a 

yesterday. 

Gold was the colour 

of your maternal touch, 

more valued than 

Midas’ itself. 

Let me 

fall naively into 

your solace. 

Oblivious to the fact that 

your arms 

were drenched 

in dirty 

fool’s gold, 

leave behind intangible stains.

I wonder how you’d react, 

as the shiny residue  

continues to 

slobber from my forearms, 

drip drip drip

and 

accumulate into a golden shadow

I am obligated to 

carry around with me 

everywhere.

Ten years after, 

wading in shallow water 

right in front of me �"  

the apparition of you. 

I had been waiting. 

Stretch out to 

take me in, 

slowly, a

little bit more… 

Limbs flailing to 

grasp for you…

Flash, 

flood.  

I am drowned by 

golden seas again. 

My insides 

brim with the 

vulgar liquid, 

as I plunge lower

and deeper.

Choke, 

choke me. 

Gold dwindles to 

Black. 

Gold was the colour

of the tears that 

did fall 

that night. 

I took my first 

and last 

chug, 

my body in horrific accord 

with his 

bygone glug. 

Blazen ocean 

creeps down my throat. 

I had always 

taken after you. 

The stench on my

breath 

was eerily reminiscent. 

I missed it, 

for all it was 

and all it wasn’t. 

My tongue 

incented, 

alight with the taste  

of shiny, 

glistening hell. 

That 

was the most 

I’d ever felt like

his daughter. 

Author's Note

second proper poem i wrote! also i have no experience with parents who drink, so tell me if this is like way off...